The world went crazy and Leo had no refuge but Sarah.
Nothing made any sense and only the one place that made no sense would have the
answers to the fear and pain tearing at him. It was all somehow connected.
It had proven easier to steal a bike than a car. Pushing
his way through a crowd gathered around a street fight, a bike had tried to push
its way through, the young rider muttering obscenities at the human roadblocks
blocking his way. Leo had grabbed the boy by the collar and dumped him
hard on the concrete. He caught the bike before it went over and straddled
the little machine while the back wheel slid on the pavement in low gear.
And then he was gone.
Cars swerved on the city streets and twice tried to hit him, or
run him off the road. He thought he heard gunshots in the distance.
His ears rang with sirens tearing by on the highway to World's End, and he
smelled tires and wood burning in the night. He understood perfectly what
was happening, but not why. It was like a horror movie come to life, an
alien contagion passing from individual to individual. And he knew its
source.
Beyond Oak Grove, the darkness and the silence intensified, but
the violence resonated in his gut, emanating from his own mind, hatred, anger and fear,
oozing from a blackness more intense than any midnight, the parasite that had
taken up residence in the core of his soul and ate at him like a living cancer. Sarah would know what was happening,
and why. He wanted only one thing from her, to be freed of the demon inside him.
Given that, he'd ride
west until he ran out of gas and then hitch-hike with Oak Grove at his back for
the rest of his life.
It wasn't what he truly wanted in his heart turned black. He wanted her, her platinum hair
and pale blue eyes that knew more than a girl had any right to know about
everything. Lust tore at him. He'd rape her if nothing else, violently if she fought him, but he loved her beneath the
devouring madness. His love for her was the only pure thing that had survived the
past few days, the only value left in his life worth fighting for.
He almost missed the turn, almost lost control of the bike.
He was screaming when he dropped into the ravine lined with the massive oaks.
It felt as if the world fell out from beneath him, but he had the presence of
mind to break lightly, and when his back tire began to snake from side to side,
he steered the bike to the side of the road and dropped it in the deep grass,
dumping himself gently to the ground. He lay panting for a time, content
to rest for as long as his heart pounded so hard, but from nearby, he heard
shoes scrap on concrete. He rolled to his feet, crouched, and a low growl
of fear-laden anger escaped between teeth grating in a clenched jaw.
He was near the spot where the car had hit him, near the spot
where the woman had spewed blackness into his face. He could see nothing
in the darkness of the night, but the blackness emanating from her had been
darker still, having nothing to do with lack of light. And it had been
alive.
A light flared in the darkness. "We know you. Leo
Danson.
What are you trying to do, Leo?"
Leo lunged toward the light, just a flashlight, just a girl, a
guard at the spot in the hollow that led to two different worlds. His
intentions were to catch her about the waist, to bowl her over. For the
moment, she'd take Sarah's place. This one he could hurt, if he had to,
use her and discard her.
This one didn't matter.
But she sidestepped him and sighed as he crashed into the
underbrush. The light went out. "Leo, behave yourself.
Sarah's on her way here now." The voice drew closer, softer, more
intimate. "My, but you are a big boy."
Leo raised himself on hands and knees and turned slowly, and
when he lunged a second time, he did managed to catch her across the legs and
throw her backwards, but she bent her knees, fell to her back, and when her feet
slammed into his stomach, his own
momentum carried him bodily up and over her. With a cry of frustration, he
went face down into the weeds a second time.
"You bitch! I'll kill you!"
He rolled over in time for something heavy to land across his
gut and knock the wind from him. Wiry hands pinned his wrists to the sides
of his head. Hot, sweet breath flooded across his face. She panted
with the effort, and with something more. "I heard what you did, Leo.
Sarah's been keeping tabs on you. She tried to hide it from us.
Little Miss Muffet. You evil piece of shit. Show me what you did to
her, you bastard. Think about what you did for me, so that I can see..."
She put an image of a naked body into his thoughts, and it
became Judy's body. Bits and
pieces of that memory flashed vividly through his mind's eye, and she somehow grabbed
it all and put it sequence. Judy writhing beneath him, slick and erotic.
He hadn't felt that at the time, or had forgotten it, how erotic her writhing
had been beneath him, how hard it had been to maintain a grip on her throat as
she fought for air.
"No better than an animal. Mind of an animal. You
got Sarah on the brain, don't you. For the life of me..."
He lunged, caught her wrists and rolled her aside, straddling
her, aware now that he had a young woman's body pinned beneath him. She fought
briefly, and then fell still, and in astonishment he could feel that the
blackness was inside her as well, serving as a line of communication between
them, feeding blind lust to and fro and amplifying it in the process. She
was going to let him do anything he wanted to do with her, to her. She would allow him to be violent, but not for a instant did he imagine she was not in
control of the situation. Leo
reached down and bunched her shirt at her breasts in his fist.
"Leo, no."
Sarah's voice. Leo scrambled to his feet. The girl
behind him fumbled in the underbrush. Light flared again, illuminating
Sarah standing on the roadside like a goddess in a glowing halo.
"Wendy, shame on you," Sarah murmured in exasperated
despair.
The emotional chaos churned inside Wendy Treman, World's End
head of security. Sarah radiated cool calm, unaffected by the infestation
while the rest of them wrestled with a madness that reminded her of century old
images of naked souls being tormented in an imagined hell. Within a single
moment, she thought of Sarah as a goddess. She worshipped the girl.
She envied her. She hated her for her unassuming intelligence and beauty,
and she thought briefly as assisting Leo Danson in achieving the psychosexual
viciousness storming in his own field of consciousness.
Sarah ignored it all. "Leo..."
Sarah turned at the sound of an approaching car. Instead
of passing through the ravine on its way elsewhere in the ordinary world, it
braked and pulled to the side of the road. Both she and Wendy Treman had
been expecting the arrival of Jessica Montegarde and her guest.
Leo's move was too spontaneous to anticipate, too sudden to
stop. He barreled into Wendy Treman, snatched her flashlight from her
hand, turned it off, and vanished into the darkness. Muttering
obscenities, she ignored Leo and followed Sarah to the car.
She recognized Jessica Montegarde climbing from the passenger seat, but not the
massive Asian male emerging from behind the steering wheel. He clutched a
revolver in one hand.
"Will they let us through?" Jessica called out to the two.
"They're expecting you. Watch your back. Leo's
about. Wendy, take them on in. I'll see what I can do for Leo."
"Can't do nothing for Leo," Wendy muttered in abject misery.
"Can't do nothing for nobody."
. . himLeo encounters a woman at the gateway, in the hollow with the fork
in the road he cannot see. Provide some background on the girl; she'll be
the one attacked by the red man in World's End. Wendy Treman, security. She's insanely aroused by
the violence Leo threatens. Leo can't find his way into World's End.
Sarah appears at that moment, startling Wendy who turns and flees into World's
End, vanishing from view.
Scene shift. Jessica senses a cry for help. She and Gant approach the hollow alert for
trouble. Gant draws his gun on Leo, but Leo has no fear of death and Gant
has no reason to shoot him when Sarah senses him about to attack and calls out
to him. He moves into the trees and vanishes. Sarah follows.
Gant is dumbfounded, even more so when he's taken into World's End and meets with
the Council. He's paralyzed by events and cannot imagine how he can help,
although he and Jessica are granted room and board when Gant's special skills
are duly noted. He, too, is impervious to the intrusion and offers a
noticeable umbrella of protection for World's End Carlotta is outraged, but Miriam reminds her of the rogue
element of the community. Juliana's name is mentioned. Carlotta goes white with shock.
Not a name to be ever mentioned in World's End. Not ever. Wendy is
attacked.
